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    Monday, June 17, 2024

    Police in Dulos case used video to disprove Michelle Troconis' 'alibi scripts'

    Michelle Troconis sheds a tear as her first interview with Connecticut State Police is presented as evidence on day 10 of her criminal trial at Connecticut Superior Court in Stamford, Conn. Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024. Troconis is on trial for charges related to the disappearance and death of New Canaan resident Jennifer Dulos. (Tyler Sizemore/Hearst Connecticut Media via AP, Pool)
    Retired Connecticut State Police Detective John Kimball watches a screen playing Michelle Troconis' first interview video with Connecticut State Police during Troconis' trial at Connecticut Superior Court in Stamford, Conn., Friday, Jan. 26, 2024. Troconis is on trial for charges related to the disappearance and death of New Canaan resident Jennifer Dulos. (H. John Voorhees III//Hearst Connecticut Media via AP, Pool)

    STAMFORD — There was a moment as Michelle Troconis was being questioned by former Connecticut State Police Detective John Kimball in 2019 when she admitted that she didn't see Fotis Dulos the morning his estranged wife went missing.

    "He was there when I woke up," she initially told Kimball in a video of her second interview with police shown Friday to a jury in state Superior Court in Stamford.

    "What if I were to tell you I have evidence that he was not at the house?" Kimball said after he implored her to stop telling a scripted version of the events that happened that day.

    Minutes later, Troconis conceded that she never saw Fotis Dulos that morning, despite two painstakingly written timelines of where she and her former boyfriend had been on the day Jennifer Dulos disappeared.

    "Did you see him that morning?" Kimball asked her after Troconis said, "now that you tell me he wasn't, he wasn't."

    "No, I did not see him," she admitted.

    Troconis, on trial facing charges of conspiracy to commit murder, tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution in the death and disappearance of Jennifer Dulos, is accused of trying to create an alibi for her former boyfriend and clean a pickup truck police believe was used in the crime. Fotis Dulos died by suicide in January 2020 while facing murder and other charges in the case.

    'We found the scripts'

    Over the past week, investigators have testified about the days after the disappearance on May 24, 2019, leading up to Troconis and Fotis Dulos being arrested for the first time on tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution charges on June 1, 2019.

    During a search of the Farmington home where Troconis and Fotis Dulos were living, investigators found what they described as "alibi scripts," which outlined what the couple did on May 24 and May 25, 2019.

    Investigators have pointed out Troconis and Fotis Dulos omitted from their timelines a series of stops they made in Hartford the night of the disappearance. The jury was presented with evidence found in trash cans along Albany Avenue, including a blood-soaked bra and shirt belonging to Jennifer Dulos.

    Video played an integral role in the discovery, investigators said. Troconis and Fotis Dulos were captured on surveillance cameras in Hartford making the stops so he could place bags in trash bins along Albany Avenue the night of the disappearance.

    When the prosecution on Thursday played the video of her first interview with police, Troconis got emotional in the courtroom, wiping away tears as she watched the interrogation at the New Canaan Police Department on June 2, 2019.

    On Friday, the jury watched Troconis' second interview with police that occurred in her former attorney's Westport office on June 6, 2019. Kimball started that interview by informing Troconis they knew why her first meeting with them seemed rehearsed.

    "We found the scripts," he said.

    Troconis told Kimball the timelines were created based on advice Fotis Dulos received from his divorce attorney.

    In each of their timelines, Troconis and Fotis Dulos said they showered together around 6:40 a.m. on May 24, 2019.

    The scripts then detailed Troconis making breakfast for her daughter, and later herself, taking her child to school and then going on a series of errands, including a trip to Stop & Shop in Avon, where she took a selfie with the store's automated security robot "Marty."

    The timeline for Fotis Dulos contained various side notes, often referring to Troconis as "Michi." His script said he got dressed in jeans and a blue shirt and then met with his friend and attorney Kent Mawhinney around 7:15 a.m. Mawhinney has been charged with conspiracy to commit murder in the case and the prosecution has said he may testify against Troconis.

    The scripts claimed Fotis Dulos met with Mawhinney in his home office until about 8:30 a.m. Fotis Dulos went on to list his various work activities for the morning before he met Troconis for lunch at noon.

    Video of red pickup

    But video evidence expected to be presented soon to the jury contradicts this series of events. In arrest warrants, police said video footage from highway surveillance cameras shows a red pickup truck traveling from Farmington to New Canaan that morning. Police said they believe Fotis Dulos was driving the truck, which belonged to one of his employees.

    The warrant shows the red Toyota Tacoma pickup, owned by Pawel Gumienny, passing the Fairfield rest area on the Merritt Parkway at 6:36 a.m. — about the time Fotis Dulos and Troconis said they were getting into the shower at his Farmington home.

    The truck is then captured on a school bus camera at 7:03 a.m. parked on Lapham Road in New Canaan, the warrant said. At 8:03 a.m., a different school bus camera picked up the truck, still parked at Lapham Road, according to the warrant.

    Around that time, police said in the warrants a nearby home security camera captured a man resembling Fotis Dulos riding a vintage bicycle he was known to own from his childhood in the direction of his wife's home.

    According to the "alibi scripts," Fotis Dulos was supposedly meeting with Mawhinney at his Farmington home at this time. But that meeting never happened, police said in the warrants. Police said Mawhinney sat in the office alone until Troconis walked in and answered a call on Fotis Dulos' cellphone, which was left at the home, from one of his friends in Greece.

    At 8:05 a.m., a home security camera near her Welles Lane home captured Jennifer Dulos returning from dropping off her five children at school, warrants said. The video is the last known image of Jennifer Dulos alive, according to the warrants.

    By that point, Fotis Dulos "is believed to have been lying in wait for his wife to return home," investigators said in the warrants. Her black Chevrolet Suburban was later seen on video leaving her home at 10:25 a.m., the warrants said. Investigators contend Fotis Dulos was behind the wheel and her body was inside, according to the warrants.

    Her Suburban was found that night on Lapham Road near where the pickup was seen parked earlier in the day, the warrants said. The Suburban was found to contain blood stains with her DNA, testimony in the trial revealed.

    The red pickup was seen on various highway videos traveling north through Fairfield on the Merritt Parkway, to Derby on Route 8 to Waterbury on Interstate 84, the arrest warrants said. The truck was then seen entering 80 Mountain Spring Road in Farmington at 12:22 p.m., the warrants said. The property belonged to Fotis Dulos' real estate development company and where police said Troconis met up with him that afternoon.

    Gumienny has been issued a subpoena and is expected to testify, possibly as soon as Monday or Tuesday, Schoenhorn said. Gumienny has been granted immunity, although it remains unclear why because police have said he was not a suspect in the investigation.

    ___

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